The study of the politics of development is more than an academic exercise. Following WorldWar II, “development” largely supplanted 19th

century ideas of “progress,” at least as far as thepoor countries of the “Third World” were concerned. Increasing the “Gross National Product”–

the overall output of goods and services as valued by the market–

was the standard proxyfor progress and increased well-being. This solved a number of problems, both intellectualand practical. Intellectually, it avoided trying to define progress in terms of some kindaggregation of utility or happiness. Practically, by equating accumulation with universalincreases in well-being, it ratified the hegemony of the existing structure of economic power.Nonetheless, it was still an uncomfortable syllogism. In the 1980s and 1990s, the “WashingtonConsensus” was widely viewed as the dominant paradigm, although its hegemony waschallenged by a series of major financial crises among its putative “stars” (Mexico in 1994,Asian Crisis in 1997-98, Argentina in early 2000s) as well as sustained rapid growth in Chinawhich did not pursue a Washington Consensus development strategy. These developmentsgave rise to ruminations on a “Post-Washington Consensus” which continue to the present.

Until the terrorist attacks of 9/11, globalization had seemed to be displacing development asan overarching framework at least among powerful policy elites, but at least since 9/11 thenotion of globalization as an inevitable historical force, and the virtues of weakening nation-states, have been dealt a blow. This process has only deepened since the financial crisis thatbegan in 2008. Globalization has been exposed as apolitical

project–

as opposed to atechnical or “natural” tendency. The parallel development of the Davos Forum and the WorldSocial Forum have created two different poles on the debate over globalization anddevelopment inthe broader business and activist communities. The financial crises of the1990s and 2008 through the present challenged many of the orthodoxies relating todevelopment, and in particular to the finance-driven Anglo-American model of development.

In the present context much debate over development has focused on Africa and on theMillenium Development Goals. But too much of the development debate focuses on aid asopposed to the myriad of other issues that influence and shape “development” in countries,whether recipients of aid or not. A number of policies (“free” markets), or programs such asmicrofinance, new technologies ($100 laptops) or others have been promoted as panaceas

(although more by the development industry than by their most informed and reflectivepractitioners or advocates). These programs all have their place, but none of them are, or canbe, the magic solution for development. No such magic key exists.

The development debate needs to be enlivened. Alternative propositions must be grounded inanalysis of past dynamics of socioeconomic and political change, but they must also reflect theways in which the current global political economy creates obstacles and opportunitiesdifferent from those encountered in the past. This course tries to explore possibilities for thekind of redefinition of the politics of development that “anti-development” theorists feel isimpossible and neoliberal triumphalists feel is not only unnecessary but hazardous to globalwell-being.

A central theme to thisdiscussion

is the relationship between what is sometime referred to as“global justice” andthe more conventionalissues

and an ethical stance for a publicservice practitioner towards thatdefinition

2.

Describe the major competing approaches that aim to explain why somecountries/individuals within countries are wealthier and/or have better humandevelopment outcomes than others

3.

Discuss the role of politics in these processes and identify ways in which the politicsand policy of development incorporates concerns about equity, efficiency, andeffectiveness in the allocation of opportunities, resources, and rights

4.

Explain the role of power in the political process and how interests, institutions, ideas,and individuals interact to create and transform power relations in the context of thepolitics of development

5.

Identify the major lessons learned from successful interventions and the challenges toscaling up effective interventions

of discussion. Finally, 10-15 minutes of concluding remarks will pull togethersome of the key points, highlight ongoing areas of empirical and theoretical debate, and framethe readings for the subsequent class. Lectures willNOT

summarize what is in the readings.Class participation will constitute a significant percentage of the final grade. Over the courseof the semester we may alter the proportion of lectureand discussion time. My lectures aretypically interactive and I have the right to call on anyone during class. If for some reason youhave not been able to do the readings or do not feel able to respond to being called on in aspecific class, please let me know. It is understandable that on a rare occasion this will be thecase. If it becomes a regular event, it will severely affect your participation grade.

Syllabus: The syllabus is large in order to provide students with a semi-annotatedbibliography of

key materials and resources in the field. This may be helpful if you areinterested in a particular topic and would like to explore it in more depth, as an initial startingpoint for papers, or simply as a reference for things you should get around to reading in yourcareer.

GRADES

There is no curve in this course. Everyone may receive an A or everyone may receive an F.

This course will abide by the Wagner School’s general policy guidelines on incomplete grades,academic honesty, and plagiarism. It is the student’s responsibility to become familiar withthese policies. All students are expected to pursue and meet the highest standards of academicexcellence and integrity.

Incomplete Grades:http://www.nyu.edu/wagner/current/pol5.html

Academic Honesty:http://www.nyu.edu/wagner/current/pol3.html

Course Requirements:

1.Class Participation: (30%) The course depends on active andongoing participationby all class participants. This will occur in three ways:

a).Weekly Participation

(20%): Participation begins with effective reading andlistening. Class participants are expected to read and discuss the readings on a weeklybasis.That means coming prepared to engage the class, with questions and/orcomments with respect to the reading.You will be expected to have completed all therequired readings before class to the point where you can be called on to critique ordiscuss any reading.

Before approaching each reading think about what the key questions are for the weekand about how the questions from this week relate to what you know from previousweeks. Then skim over the reading to get a sense of the themes it covers, and, beforereading further, jot down what questions you hope the reading will be able to answerfor you. Next, read the introduction and conclusion. This(usually) gives you a sense ofthe big picture

of the piece. Ask yourself: Are the claims in the text surprising? Do youbelieve them? Can you think of examples that do not seem consistent with the logic ofthe argument? Is the reading answering the questions you hoped it would answer? Ifnot, is it answering more or less interesting questions than you had thought

of? Nextask yourself: What types of evidence or arguments would you need to see in order tobe convinced of the results? Now read through the whole text, checking as you gothrough how the arguments used support the claims of the author. It is rare to find apiece of writing that you agree with entirely. So, as you come across issues that you arenot convinced by, write them down and bring them along to class for discussion. Alsonote when you are pleasantly (or unpleasantly) surprised orwhen the authorproduced a convincing argument that you had not thought of.

In class itself, the key to quality participation is listening. Asking good questions is thesecond key element. What did you mean by that? How do you/we know? What’s theevidence for that claim?

This is not a license for snarkiness, but for reflective,thoughtful, dialogic engagement with the ideas of others in the class. Don’t be shy.Share your thoughts and reactions in ways that promote critical engagement withthem. Quality and quantity of participation can be, but are notnecessarily, closelycorrelated.

b). Précis/Response Papers: (5%

X2) Each week2-3

people will take responsibility forpreparing response papers to one or more of the readings. This includes writing a 3-5page précis of the reading that a) lays out the main argument(s), b) indicates what youfound provocative and/or mundane, and c) poses 3-4 questions for class discussion.These handouts will be distributed via email to the rest of the class bySunday

at8

PM(using the course website). Everyone will preparetwo

précis over the course of thesemester. Everyone who prepares a précis for the week should be prepared to providea brief (2-3 minute) outline of their reaction to the readings as acontribution todiscussion.

2.

Op-Ed

(15%) One op-ed length (700-750 words) on an important current issuerelating to development [for guidance see the

resource under “Writing Materials”section of theSakai

site]. This is dueSeptember

23

via Sakai.PLEASE PUT YOURNAME AND WAGNER MAILBOX # IF YOU HAVE ONE ON THE OP-ED. PLEASELABEL YOUR ATTACHED FILE “Yournamedevelopmentoped.”

in case of emergency. This is out of respect tothose who have abided by deadlines, despite equally hectic schedules. Papers handed in latewithout extensions will be penalized one-third of a grade per day.

“Introduction to Public Policy” (P11.1022) or “History and Theory of UrbanPlanning”(P11.2600) or equivalent, Microeconomics, and “Institutions, Governance, andDevelopment” (P11.2214). [Lacking these, permission of the Instructor is required]. A priorcourse in the politics/sociology/economics/management of development would be helpfulbut is not required.

Some of the issues are grounded in Paolo Freire’s classicPedagogy of the Oppressed

andvarious works on the theology of liberation, by Gustavo Guttierez, Leonardo Boff, Karl Gaspar,Edicio dela Torre, among others. For a discussion of one attempt to apply this framework toNortherners, seeAlice Frazer Evans, Robert A. Evans and William

Bean Kennedy,Pedagogiesfor the Non-Poorby, Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis Books (1987).For more philosophical discussionsee the symposium on World Poverty and Human Rights inEthics and International Affairs

19:1 (2005), and work by Thomas Pogge, Peter SingerOne World, Peter UngerLiving High andLetting Die. (If you have time and want to see Peter Singer discuss his latest book, PeterSinger,The Life You Can Save

http://www.cceia.org/resources/video/data/000231

Also seework byIris Marion Young, Matthias Risse, Des Gaspar, Jon Mandle, among others for work onglobal justice and its relationship to development.

Is there anything worth rescuing in the concept of development? How do we know?

Is development about outcomes or processes? What are the costs or benefits in focusing onone or the other? What indicators would we use? Is there a difference in thepolitics

ofdevelopment if we focus on either outcomes or processes? Or on the importance of both?

What is the scale at which “development” is an important phenomenon? Individuals?Communities? Countries? Regions? The global economy? Humanity? What are the politicalimplications of choosing to privilege one of these over the other?

Arturo Escobar,Encountering Development: The Making and Unmaking of the Third World.Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1995);Jan Nederveen Pieterse,“Twenty-firstCentury Globalization, Paradigm Shifts in

Development outcomes may be shaped by long-term structural factors as well as by moreshort-term policies. If politics is the art of the possible, then understanding the constraintsand opportunities created by long-term structural factors gives us insight into how large therealm of that possible is. What are the implications for development politics and policyat thenational and global levels? What are the ethical implications if people are born in countrieswhose economiesmay

not do well because of the disadvantages of geography and the legacyof colonial boundaries and institutions, even if they have good leaders and work hard?

Formore on climate see:Bryan Walsh, Green is the New Red, White and Bluehttp://www.time.com/time/specials/2007/article/0,28804,1730759_1731383_1731363,00.html, Oxfam GB, adapting to Climate Change who payshttp://www.oxfam.org/en/files/bp104_climate_change_0705.pdf/download

and the overview in Andrew Rosser, “PoliticalEconomy of the Resource Curse,” IDS Working Paper #268http://www.ids.ac.uk/ids/bookshop/wp/wp268.pdf

and also see David Landes,The WealthofNations.

WEEK 5: CULTURE

We explore the issue of culture with respect to the practice of female genital mutilation andthe efforts of grassroots groups in sub-Saharan Africa to eradicate the practice as well as thatof corruption.

We explore the processes of state-building by looking first at the European experience, wherethe firstnation-states

(not the firststates) were forged after years of conflict. Then we look atthe export of these types of states elsewhere and explore the issues associated with buildingeffective political institutions. Should all countries have nation-states, or should we enable thecreation of other types of states?

Charles Tilly,Capital, Cities, and Coercion. [Sakai]

Jeff Herbst,States and Power in Africa

[Sakai]

Why Nations Fail,Chapter 11

Paul Collier,The Bottom Billion

(Chapter 2 “The Conflict Trap”andChapter 8 “MilitaryIntervention”)

Somaliland Case

[Sakai]

Alex DeWaal

Fixing the Political Marketplace

[Sakai]

For further reading:

Tilly’s other work is exceptional, such as“War Making and State Making as Organized Crime,”in Evans, Rueschemeyer and Skocpol, eds.,Bringing the State Back In. Cambridge, UK:Cambridge UP, pp. 169-189.

no. 2, April2004 andGeorg Sørensen, “War and state making—why doesn’t it work in the Third World?”Failed States Conference, Purdue, 2001.[http://www.ippu.purdue.edu/failed_states/2001/papers/Sørensen.pdf] and Ann Leander,“Wars and the Un-Making of States: Taking Tilly Seriously in the Contemporary World”http://www.copri.dk/publications/Wp/WP%202002/34-2002.pdf. Stephen Krasner, “SharedSovereignty,”Journal of Democracy

(Jan 2005) [Sakai]; also Fearon and Laitin inInternationalSecurity. See alsoMichael W. Doyle and Nicholas Sambanis,Making War and Building Peace

(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2006).Joel Migdal, State in Society

http://globetrotter.berkeley.edu/macarthur/inequality/papers/BardhanInstitutionsandDev.pdf; James C. Scott,Seeing Like a State, pp.309-319, 328-341 andConclusion. Also Douglas C.North,Understanding the Process of Economic Change

Press, 1966) is probably the single most influential book in the comparativehistorical tradition. Charles Tilly'sThe Vendee(Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1964) isalso a classic. Gordon White, “Constructing a Democratic Developmental State,” inMarkRobinson and Gordon White (eds)The Democratic Developmental State

(NY: OxfordUniversity Press, 1998) is valuable, as are other classics with contemporary relevance include,Karl Polanyi,The Great Transformation. Also seeGeoffrey Underhill and Xiaoke Zhang, “TheChanging State–Market Condominium in East Asia: Rethinking the Political Underpinnings ofDevelopment,”

New Political Economy

March 2005.Current works include Alice AmsdenTheRise of the Rest

(Oxford, 2001) andHa-Joon Chang, “Kicking Away the Ladder:–

The “Real”History of Free Trade,” available online athttp://www.newschool.edu/cepa/papers/workshop/chang_030419.doc

andMick Moore,Political Underdevelopment,

http://www.ids.ac.uk/ids/govern/pdfs/PolUnderdevel(refs).pdf. For some other resourcessee the papers and discussions athttp://www.othercanon.org. Also see Robert Bates, “TheDevelopmental State”http://www.cid.harvard.edu/cidpeople/bates/Weingast_Essay.pdf.John Williamson, “What Should the World Bank Think About the Washington Consensus,”World Bank Research Observer

There is a monstrous literature on the Washington Consensus and Structural Adjustment. Forstarters, the World Bank’s own reviews of adjustment by the OED. Also Joseph Stiglitz,MoreInstruments and Broader Goals: Moving Toward the Post-Washington Consensus The 1998WIDER Annual Lectureavailable online athttp://www.worldbank.org/html/extdr/extme/js-010798/wider.htm. See also Stiglitz,Globalization and Its Discontents. William Easterly, “Whatdid structural adjustment adjust? The association of policies and growth with repeated IMFand World Bank adjustment loans,” CGD WORKING PAPER NUMBER11 October 2002http://www.cgdev.org/pubs/workingpapers.html (select either pdf or word formats). Seealso Beeson and Islam,Neoliberalism and East Asia

[Sakai]. See also Dani Rodrik, “How toMake the Trade Regime Work for Development” (February 2004)

the previous week explored the national dynamics of access to and control overnatural resource revenue, this week explores the community-level dynamics associated withunequal patterns of control over land and water resources along gender lines.

or Mille Thayer Feminists and Funding.Sylvia Chant and Matthew C. Gutmann,“‘Men-streaming’ gender? Questions for gender and development policy in the twenty-firstcentury,”Progress in Development Studies2,4 (2002) pp. 269–282 [Sakai]

and AndreaCornwall, “Whose Voices? Whose Choices?”WorldDevelopment

[Sakai]

WEEK9

POLITICS OF GLOBAL RESOURCE DISTRIBUTION: WHAT IS FAIR AND FEASIBLEIN THE GLOBAL DEVELOPMENT SPACE

There is along-standing argument that there is atrade0off between development democracy,at least at low levels of per capita income and in the early stages of industrialization. We willexamine efforts to answer that question and also explore issues associated withunderstanding the effects of regime type on growth, human development, and equality.

Tom Carothers, TBA

Jonathan Fox, Semi-Clientelism[Sakai]

Amartya Sen,Development as Freedom, Chapter 6

John Harriss (2005a):”Political Participation, Representation and the Urban Poor. Findingsfrom a Research in Delhi” inEconomic and Political Weekly, March 12: 1041-1054.

Mariz Tadro,Working Politically Behind Red Lines:

Structure and agency in a comparative study of women’s coalitions in Egypt and Jordan

[Sakai]

For further reading:

SeePeterEvans, “Development as Institutional Change: The Pitfalls of Monocropping and the

Potentials of Deliberation,”Studies in Comparative and International Development

and responses to Carothers piece in theJuly 2002 issue of theJournal of Democracy, Philippe C. Schmitter and Terry Lynn Karl, “WhatDemocracy Is...and Is Not,”Journal of Democracy(Summer 1991) also Amartya Sen,“Democracy as a Universal Value,”Journal of Democracy1

and “After Twenty Years: The Future of the ThirdWaveJournal of Democracy(October 1997)Classic statements also include Alexis deToqueville, Democracy in America, and the numerous works of Robert Dahl. Other classic

pieces includeFrancis Fukuyama, “The End of History,”The National Interest

Summer (1989)pp. 3-18.

Also see Ashutosh Varshney (1999): “Democracy and Poverty”. Paper for theConference on World Development Report 2000. The World Bank.[http://www.worldbank.org/poverty/wdrpoverty/dfid/varshney.pdf]. Also, Larry Diamond,“Can the Whole World Become Democratic? Democracy, Development, and InternationalPolicies”

Hoover Institution, Stanford University

http://repositories.cdlib.org/csd/03-05/

(alonger version of the piece above). Also valuable is Minxin Pei and

Sara Kasper

LESSONS FROMTHE PAST: The American Record of Nation Building

available online athttp://www.ceip.org/files/pdf/Policybrief24.pdf.Thomas Carothers,Is Gradualism Possible?Promoting Democracy in the Middle East

available online athttp://www.ceip.org/files/pdf/wp39.pdf

--

and Tom Carothers,Promoting the Rule of LawAbroad,http://www.ceip.org/files/pdf/wp34.pdf.Ballard, R. Social movements: Unofficalopposition or voice of the poor? In Jones, P. and Stokke, K.(2005):Democratising development:The politics of socio-economic rights.Adam Przeworski and Fernando Limongi,“Modernization: Theories and Facts,”World Politics

for a critique of Limongi and Przeworksi among others onconceptual and methodological grounds[http://archive.allacademic.com/publication/docs/apsa_proceeding/2003-08-26/947/apsa_proceeding_947.PDF] and supporting materialshttp://archive.allacademic.com/publication/supporting_docs/apsa_supporting_proceeding/2003-08-26/184/apsa_supporting_proceeding_184.PDF.

See alsoWorld Bank,Learning from aDecade of Reform,Chapter 10http://www1.worldbank.org/prem/lessons1990s/

andFareedZakaria, Illiberal Democracy,Foreign Affairs

November/December 1997[http://www.fareedzakaria.com/articles/other/democracy.html]andJean Dreze, Democracyand the Right to Food [Sakai].

WEEK 11:EMPOWERMENT ANDRights-Based Approaches to Development

Rights-based approaches to development have beenincreasingly

promoted as thesolution tomove beyond development as a series of hand outs and to address the need to createaccountablepolitical and economic institutions as the foundations of development whileexpanding the respect for and promotion of internationally recognized human rightsstandards. What

are the key elements ofrights-based approach(es)?

What evidence do wehave thatrights-based approaches are effective at achievingtheir objectives?

What are thetrade-offs associated with a rights-based approach?

Do they effectively incorporate concernsfor justice with concerns for economic growth?

andMountains ofstuff available. For a quick overview seeCaterina Ruggeri Laderchi, Ruhi Saith and FrancesStewart, “Does it matter that we don't agree on the definition of poverty? A comparison of fourapproaches,”Oxford Development Studies

While the distributionof calories is much more equal than the distribution of land,inequalities in the ownership of land and other productive assets is both influenced bypolitical power and influences politics. Is it possible to pursue a redistributive policy underdemocracy that results in a real transfer of productive resources? What are the examples ofeffective redistributive programs and what are the coalitional and institutional conditions thatmake such efforts more likely?